FTVLive.com

For the first time in over a decade you are looking at FTVLive without having to climb through a paywall.

Yep...FTVLive.com is now free to everyone!!!!!

Note: for the moment you are being redirected to this site while the URL takes its sweet time being transferred over to the new server.

When FTVLive first launched back in 2000, it started as a website that was just for my friends.

Because I had worked in so many stations in my TV career, I got to meet a lot of people over the years. We all would share news and gossip and I decided to do a website where I could share the "dish" without having to just keep emailing each other.

When the site launched it had about 100 visits a day. But as my friends told their friends and they in turn told their friends, FTVLive.com went from 100 hits to thousands! in the matter of just a couple of weeks.

It was then that I thought maybe I could turn it into a business and I decided to make FTVLive a pay site that was members only.

At the time it seemed like the only pay sites out there were mostly just porn websites. People told me that FTVLive would never work as a pay site.

A decade later and it looks like those people wrong (God I like saying that).

Now-a-days the New York Times, Washington Post and countless other newspapers, Magazines and other websites are moving over to the pay model. Which shows me FTVLive was about 10 years ahead of the curve.

Back in the middle of 2012, I thought about taking FTVLive.com from a pay site to a free Advertiser supported site.

Of course, everyone now says that model is broken and a site cannot survive relying just on sponsors.

My goal now is to prove those people wrong....again.

FTVLive reached out to a very select group of companies that we believed in. Companies that we felt were honest and we would be proud to have their banner on our site.

Over the years, FTVLive has turned down ad dollars from companies that we really felt were just not the kind of company we wanted on our site.

We are happy to say that the companies we reached out to believed in us as much as we believed in them.

And because them...YOU can now read FTVLive.com for free!

Are we making as much money as we were as a pay site? Nope not yet. But I really wanted to change FTVLive.com for the better and get it out there before more eyeballs.

There are people out there that have been members of FTVLive.com since the very first day. Those people are Rockstars in our eyes and we can't thank them enough for the support over the years.

For the people that never wanted to pay for FTVLive can read the site for free. I encourage to to tell your friends, co-workers, enemies and whoever else that FTVLive.com is free to all. In fact telling your friends could win you a free iPad Mini! Read how down below.

Being free is the biggest change, but far short from the only change.

My goal is to update FTVLive.com everyday, not just Monday - Friday. Instead of logging onto FTVLive in the morning and reading the stories for that day.... we plan on updating throughout the day.

Let's face it...when you update just in the morning your site gets very stale, very fast.

We used to rise early in the morning and post 10-20 stories on FTVLive with many just being a cut and paste job. We didn't have the time to flush the story out and add to it. Those days are gone!

You might find a new story was posted in the middle of the night, after your lunch or even on a Holiday. The goal is to become a website that stays fresh all the time.

FTVLive is still just a one person website and I will be the one doing all the work, but it is a challenge that I look forward to.

So take your time to bump around the site and feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post, or any other post for that matter.

Also, you can click the "like" button to show that you like a particular story (and you don't have to log into anything to "like" a story).

The last thing we ask is take your time to check out our sponsors and use their services when the need arises. These companies are top notch.... if they weren't you wouldn't see their banner on this site.

Enjoy and Please tell the person next to you in the newsroom that FTVLive.com is now free to everyone!